More Cutbacks, Fewer School Days Forecasted for 2012-13

If you thought things were tough now in our schools, you may be referring to these as the good old days in the years to come.

Fountain Valley School District Stephen McMahon presented details of the proposed State budget for 2012-13 to the Board of Trustees Thursday evening, and in his gloomy words, “It has come to the point that very soon this board is going to have to go to the community and say we have to support our school locally (because) we can no longer rely on the state to anywhere near fund our schools.”

McMahon’s dour report on Governor Jerry Brown’s recently proposed State budget was based on inflated projections on state income, larger cutbacks to education than any other industry, increasing deficits and deferrals, and another year of flat funding in education.

Education has been cut more than other parts of the state budget and probably is owed more by California than any other state-funded program. Currently, about $10 billion is owed to school districts, the difference between what they are being paid now and what they should be receiving. Add to that figure deferrals, which are delayed payments, and that’s another 10 billion. Altogether, that’s $20 billion owed to the state’s school districts.

To meet that obligation, state income would have to grow by 25 percent and the school districts would have to get all the new income. Is that going to happen? Probably not, concedes McMahon. The state projects income growth of 2-3 percent in the next year.

“Our deficit factor is over 19 percent, nearly 22 percent, so out of every dollar that we are due we are getting 88 cents,” McMahon said. “Add to that deferrals and we are getting close to 60 cents of (every dollar) in the year we are suppose to be getting it, with the rest the following year. It’s not a good situation for schools at all.”

Based on current projections, the state will be funding school districts about $370 less per student for the 2012-13 school year. In the FVSD, that would result in a cut of $2.3 million to the budget. The district already was planning to eleminate five days from the current 180 days of school, which is about $200,000 for every furlough day, to stay within its current budget. But to counterbalance a cut of $2.3 billion, the district would need to eliminate another 11½ days on top of the five days, meaning there would be 163½ days of school next year.

“That’s the wrong direction we are going with our schools,” McMahon said. “We want more days, not less.”

McMahon said those figures could change, however, if the Governor can convince state legislators to pass his proposed “School and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012.” What that would do is increase sales tax through 2016 by 1%-2%, based on total income and marital status, which would bring significant money to the state.

But, according to McMahon, the proposal would not bring any additional dollars to the schools. Instead, it would offset funding to other programs like Medicaid, so the cuts to education would be less. It also would increase the funding of deferrals by $2 billion.

Historically, though, voters have been reluctant to vote for any type of tax increase, so Governor Brown and his tax proposal supporters likely will have their work cut out for them before the November elections.

“Some educational groups are giving this a hard look,” McMahon said. “It’s deceiving. It’s made to look that schools and education are getting all this additional funding, but it doesn’t do that at all, in my opinion.”

In the big picture, how have these continuing cutbacks in state education funding affected our children’s performance in the classroom? In a word, plenty.

California currently ranks 46th out of 50 states in funding and ranks in the bottom five with Idaho, Mississippi, Arizona and Nevada. California spends about 3.5 percent of state revenues, or at most $8,700 per student, and the result is that eighth graders are scoring only 28 percent on the national assessment. By comparison, states such as Vermont, Wyoming and Maine are spending between $16,000 and $22,000 per student, or 5 percent of state revenues, on education, and eighth graders are scoring 41 percent on the national assessment.

So does money make a difference? No getting around it, McMahon said.

“I know there are so many good things we could do if we had a little bit of money,” McMahon told the trustees. “We are very fortunate that we’ve managed to have a dedicated staff that has kept test scores up and the schools looking as good as they are, but you are starting to see the wear and tear on schools. It’s fraying around the edges. People haven’t had raises in several years and they’ve had cutbacks, so there is a limit to how much of this we can take. It’s going to be a tough, tough year.”

In other school news:

Trustee Christine Alcorn reported that there has been “a tremendous amount of concern over redistricting,” from parents over where their children will be attending elementary and middle school next year. Letters were mailed out Wednesday to every parent of a student in the district, identifying which school the student was assigned to for 2012-13.

Superintendent Marc Ecker said he expects to start hearing from parents next week, but expressed hope that everyone will attend one of the scheduled school tours or Open House events at their assigned school before considering a transfer.

Student Recognition:

More than 300 people attended the opening of the school board meeting for a special presentation to students.

Middle school students from Fulton, Masuda, Moiola and Talbert were recognized by Elks USA for finishing in first, second or third place in an Americanism Essay Contest entitled “Why I am Proud to Pledge Allegiance to Our Flag.” Six students each from Fulton, Masuda and Talbert also were recognized for “high achievement, improvement or extraordinary effort,” by their respective schools.

In addition, the winners of the Elk’s Drug Awareness Poster Contest were recognized by the board. Third place went to Paige Davis of Geisler Elementary, second place went to Mercedes Zamora of Oka Elementary, and first place went to Brandon Krause of Courreges Elementary.